J&j Agrees Capsules Were Mistake

February 19, 1986|United Press International

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The mother of the woman killed by cyanide-tainted Tylenol broke her silence Tuesday, saying Johnson & Johnson`s decision to pull its capsules off the market came ``three years too late,`` and the company`s chairman agreed.

Johnson & Johnson Chairman James Burke said he wished the capsules had not been returned to the market after seven still unsolved killings in Chicago from cyanide-laced Tylenol more than three years ago.

``In hindsight, which is 20-20, I wish we had never gone back to marketing these capsules,`` Burke said in an interview on WABC-TV news.

The death of Diane Elsroth, 23, of Peekskill, N.Y., Feb. 8 and the discovery of a second bottle of cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules in a Bronxville, N.Y., store last week forced Johnson & Johnson to stop selling over-the-counter drugs in capsule form.

``It`s just three years too late,`` said Elsroth`s mother, Felicia.

The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, reported it tested 270,400 capsules of Tylenol, most from the Bronxville area, without finding evidence of poisoning, and Westchester County Medical Examiner Millard Hyland in White Plains reviewed the results of all 16 autopsies performed in the county since Jan. 1.

County spokesman Marc Moran said Hyland is ``satisfied . . . there was no indication of cyanide poisoning`` in any of the deaths.

Eli Lilly and Co., meanwhile, unveiled a capsule on Tuesday sealed with a thin, colored band of gelatin that the drug manufacturer says will hamper tampering. Lilly is the nation`s seond largest producer of capsules.

Within the next few months, some of the company`s capsules will be sealed with the gelatin, officials said. The seal will make it almost impossible for a capsule to be taken apart.

Although the seal should help cut down tampering, officials said it won`t make the capsules completely safe.